Propositioning By Accident
by SCWLC
Summary: Katara's dreams are starting to get to her. Final story in the Proposal series.


Title: Propositioning By Accident

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I own nothing here.

Summary: Katara's dreams are starting to get to her. Final story in the Proposal series.

Author's Notes: Okay, here's the last story. It's somewhat risqué, but it looks like this is where it ends. It's a happy ending, and I'm a little sorry I wasn't able to get in everyone's requests, but I can't take things in illogical directions, character-wise or plot-wise for that purpose. No, I don't plan on any sequels to this series. I have an NC-17 rated version where I don't do an abrupt fade to black which will be posted to my fanfic blog. You can find that link on my profile page as my homepage link. For the record, I haven't written smut in years, so I'm very out of practice.

Item the . . . third? I plan to work on an update on a totally different fic in a totally different fandom next, so don't expect me back in the Avatar: Last Airbender fandom again for a while. This series has been completely unusual for me with the speed of my updates, and I've let a few things really slide while I was writing it too. For everyone who read, thank you for reading, and for everyone who reviewed, but didn't sign in, thanks for the reviews.

I hereby give you the grand finale, which I hope doesn't disappoint too many of you too much.

* * *

After Ujarak had raped her, Katara had had a repeating nightmare of that night. The sense of her bending weakening, going to sleep, waking up to him pulling her out of bed, slamming her to the floor before she could get her bearings, tying her down with the rough baling cord and yanking her head back by the hair so she would look him in the eye and know he was the one taking her. He'd bitten her, slammed her back down against the ice-cold floor of her igloo and then pain.

It would all become a confused jumble in her head at that point in the dream. Like her own subconscious was shying away from the details. Just impressions. A bite. Pain. Pressure. Bruising fingers on her shoulders, her hips.

And cold. She always felt so cold.

The nightmares had continued even after she'd finally accepted that it wasn't her fault he'd hurt her. She'd had one the same night she'd tried to seduce Zuko. They'd kissed, and Katara had sauntered happily from the room, feeling confident and sensual despite everything else that had gone on. Zuko had wanted her, but had been willing to wait until she was ready. The kiss had been amazing. It was everything romance stories made kisses out to be.

And then she went to bed and woke up mere hours later, cold and frightened, terrified and alone. Conflicting desires ran rampant through her. On the one hand she wanted to run straight to Zuko. To curl into his warmth and the feeling of safety he provided. At the same time, the very thought of going anywhere near anything male at that moment made her cringe in disgust. She wanted to throw up. It was all she could do the next morning to hide the aftereffects.

They had gotten better. She could spend a whole evening, comfortably settled against Zuko, watching the turtleducks in the pond, and have no bad dreams. She could manage some wonderful kisses with him, and not spark anything in her subconscious. But she did want more, and sometimes she was incautious and an evening of delicious kisses and the feel of his hands pulling her close would turn into a disaster when she woke up from disjointed memories of cold and fear.

After her father's visit, everything changed.

It was like some switch had been flipped, her father telling her he'd been wrong, that she'd done nothing wrong and that she deserved the happiness Zuko had been giving her, all that changed something in her. The night after her father left, she and Zuko had gone farther than was good for her sleeping comfort. Katara had gone to bed, dreading the midnight terrors, falling asleep, clinging to how good she felt right then as a talisman against the dreams.

_It was a full moon and her bending had never been stronger. He snuck in behind her, but she could feel him approaching, the water in his body palpable when her bending was this powerful. He reached for her, trying to capture her, but she slid away easily. Her hands whipped about, pulling the water up, spinning it around him until it formed a bubble around him. _

_It was clear and she could see him inside, handsome and smiling at her. He was glowing, a warm, fiery light that melted away the barrier keeping him from her. This time, when he reached for her, she let him._

_His hands cupped her face as he leaned over, kissing her gently. So gently it was like a butterfly alighting on her lips, but she wanted more. She pulled him closer, kissing him and feeling his arms tighten around her. Instead of making her feel trapped, they protected her, keeping her safe from the ice and snow that covered the ground._

_Somehow they were lying down together and he was underneath her, keeping her from touching the cold floor. His hands were all over her, on all the same places she could remember being touched before, but those other memories were distant. What mattered was right now when she just wanted more of everything from him. The dream began to dissolve into snatches of feeling. A kiss pressed here, a touch there._

_And she was warm. So blissfully warm._

Katara woke with a start, panting and sweating and thinking of nothing but how much she wanted Zuko right then. It was crazy. She just wanted to find him and kiss him and . . . what? Katara shied away from the thought. It was just a little much to realise that she was thinking of all the things Ujarak had done, and imagining how Zuko would have done them, which would have been totally different, and she just felt hot and . . .

Getting out of bed, she headed to the washroom and splashed cold water on her face. Then she went back to bed, refusing to think about any of it, and went back to sleep.

The next few weeks the dream repeated. It was getting to be as frequent an occurrence as her old dream of Ujarak, but she was waking up now, not frightened, but wanting. Wanting to find Zuko. To be touched by him. To feel the warm, lithe body she knew he had under her hands. She hadn't had dreams like this since she was fourteen. The last ones she'd had had been about Jet. After Jet things had gotten too crazy, she'd been too stressed to even think about boys in any concerted way. And after Ujarak, the idea of men had repulsed her. She tried talking to Suki, when the two came to visit.

Suki's response hadn't been precisely . . . helpful. "Really? It's Zuko, right? I mean, in the dreams? What's he doing?" She'd grinned and scooted closer.

"I . . . yes . . . Suki, what should I do?" Katara could hear herself whining, but didn't care.

The other woman said, "Well, before anything else, I need details. Are you guys in bed? Oo! I bet you're in a lake. I know Sokka and I-"

"I don't want to hear anything about what you're doing with my brother!" Katara said, wide-eyed.

Her friend frowned. "Oh. Yeah, that's a good point." Her mood turned around again. "So? Tell me all about it!"

And Katara told her. She finished with, "And then things just get kind of vague. Like, I know he's kissing my neck, and then he's kissing . . . I don't know, say, my back. But it's like there's no . . . connection between the moments."

Suki nodded sagely. "Right. Because your memory doesn't have any real experiences-" As Katara was about to object that she'd obviously had sex with Ujarak, Suki said, "Don't interrupt, the walrus man doesn't count. Since you don't have any real experiences, it's like your dreams are trying to guess what it'd be like."

"What should I do?" Katara asked again.

"What do you think?" Suki said. "Hop into bed with him and don't come out until you're both satisfied. I bet Zuko's really _satisfying_." A lascivious grin followed the word.

Ty Lee had been even less help. Katara had told her, and had found herself on a shopping trip through the seediest part of town to shops full of underthings the likes of which Katara had never even imagined. She found herself with some very abbreviated nightdresses. There were things that were supposed to take the place of underwraps, but didn't seem to hold things in place so much as move them into unexpected positions that Katara saw made her look like some very fanciful illustrations in the windows of certain establishments where men could hire companions by the hour.

The former circus performer and now Kyoshi warrior then bought nearly half the things Katara had tried on, assuring her they'd come in handy.

Talking with her gran had been the worst.

"Now, your grandfather and I had a fairly straightforward approach to things, but that's to be expected. It's a little too cold at the South Pole to be too adventurous. Still, he was quite skilled with his hands. Knew just how to-"

Katara's eyes glazed over as she tried to keep from picturing the grandfather she'd known only briefly as a child doing such things with her grandmother. When she started paying attention again, her gran was saying, "Now Iroh, he's creative. He does some very interesting things-"

"What things?" came Zuko's curious voice. Katara felt herself flush all over. There must have been a more embarrassing moment somewhere in her past, but right now she couldn't think of it.

She looked up, seeing her grandmother fix Zuko with an unreadable look. Then the woman grinned in a way that clearly made Zuko uncomfortable. "He does some interesting things with . . . tea," said the old woman.

"Oh," Zuko said, then he seemed to suddenly realise something. "_Oh._" He looked horribly embarrassed. As they left her grandmother behind at the Water Tribe embassy where the woman now lived as the tribe's envoy, Zuko asked, "What were you two talking about?"

Because she was so distracted, Katara didn't even think as she said, "What it's been like with all the men in her life."

"Is that why she's been travelling to Ba Sing Se so much?" Zuko asked, aghast. "She's been . . . visiting with Uncle?"

"You didn't know?" Katara inquired. "I mean, I was sure you'd gotten that letter about the wedding-"

"They're getting married?" Zuko stared at her. It was really a good thing they were in a carriage. He probably would have stopped dead having the conversation in the middle of the street. "In Ba Sing Se?"

Grateful that he wasn't going to pursue _why_ her grandmother had been talking to her about men, Katara went along with the conversation. "Sure. It's very hard to remarry in the Water Tribe if you're past childbearing age, and Fire Nation ceremonies take forever," Katara told him. "An Earth Kingdom wedding just needs a priest and a witness."

Zuko started muttering about tea and old people and not wanting to know about it, and Katara left him to it. She still had her own things to work through.

Things came to an unexpected head in the aftermath of Kanna and Iroh's wedding. In spite of everything, Zuko and Katara hadn't been able to arrive until the morning of the wedding, and both were immediately swept into the preparations. Katara noted, to her dismay, that the maids who had done the packing for her while she was in meetings about funding the new public school system for the poorest families on the outer islands, had packed none of her normal bindings, instead using the delicate lacy undergarments Ty Lee had purchased.

There was no time to worry overmuch about it, so Katara simply put on the one set that seemed most comfortable and didn't think about it again until that night. The wedding had gone marvellously, the party after had been fun, Iroh and Kanna happily dancing the night away, the rest of the partygoers had an equally delightful time to all appearances.

It was after everyone was heading back to their rooms for the night that the royal couple discovered a slight problem they should have expected. They were married, so naturally, it had been assumed they would share a bed. It was far too late at night to roust out any servants in King Kuei's palace for a different place to sleep, and there was no other furniture which could be used in place of a bed. "We'll share the bed," Katara said, determinedly, before Zuko could say anything. "It's large enough, there shouldn't be any problems."

"If you're sure," Zuko told her. "You want the washroom first?"

"No," she said. "It'll take me a while to get out of this and into my nightclothes. You go first and I'll change in here."

An odd expression crossed Zuko's face, and he seemed about to say something. He clearly thought better of it and vanished into the next room. As the sound of splashing emerged, Katara started undoing the various laces and whatnot that held her dress up. She didn't even notice when the splashing stopped, or when Zuko came out of the washroom.

She did notice when he made a strangled gargling noise as she managed to get the last of the knots undone and the dress puddled suddenly to the floor, leaving her in the delicate garments she'd had to put on that morning. "Katara?" he asked.

Katara turned around, abruptly, got her feet tangled in the dress and started to fall. A moment later, she was wrapped in Zuko's arms, pressed against his chest as he kept her from being hurt in the fall. "Zuko?" She was suddenly aware of just how little she was wearing, and more than that, she was aware of the effect she was having on him. Pressed against her wasn't just smooth, heated skin over taut muscle, thinly covered in silk. Against her leg she could feel something rigid and long and she closed her eyes for a moment because a surge of want, like from her dreams, almost overwhelmed her.

He pulled back, setting her on her feet, and she nearly reached for him. "What are you wearing?" he asked, his voice positively rasping in his throat.

"Ty Lee . . . she dragged me out shopping," Katara said. "I had these dreams and Suki wasn't helping and I tried to talk to Ty Lee, but she just said I should get these and just sneak over to you in the middle of the night, and then the maids didn't put my bindings into the luggage-" Katara cut herself off, aware that she wasn't making much sense to anyone who wasn't her.

Something seemed to have been making sense to Zuko, however. "Dreams?" he said. He took a few steps closer, and Katara discovered that somehow her reflex to flinch when a man got too close wasn't happening, because she was leaning toward him. He closed the last few steps, and pulled her close. "What kinds of dreams?"

"You were in them," Katara heard herself whisper.

He kissed her.

It wasn't like any of the times before. Nothing was holding him back, and it was like Zuko had forgotten whatever it was that had always made him pull away before things went too far. She knew that the something different was her. It was like something inside her suddenly knew, _really knew_, that Ujarak was never coming back to torment her, and that Zuko was truly not him.

Afterwards, they lay on the bed, entwined, and Zuko firmly wrapped himself around her. "Mmm. You are wonderful," Katara told him.

His arms briefly tightened. "So are you. I can't thank your brother enough for making this happen."

They were both very close to sleep, drifting happily, when the very soft sound of the door opening brought the two to alertness. Suddenly, Sokka's voice was heard, whispering, "Hey! Katara!"

Zuko frowned, lighting the candles in the room with a quick gesture. "Sokka? What do you want?"

The Water tribesman was silent however, his eyes boggling and his mouth open. "Sokka?" Katara asked.

"My eyes!" Sokka suddenly wailed, quietly. "My sister's . . . augh!"

"What?" Zuko said, entirely perplexed by his friend's sudden hysterics.

Suki's head poked in a moment later, while Sokka continued to softly make disturbing noises and half-formed sentences about seeing his sister in bed with someone, she grinned at Katara, pointed to her and said, "You are giving me every detail tomorrow." She turned to Zuko. "Don't worry about him. He hadn't really understood that his sister marrying you meant that she was going to have to actually sleep with you."

"What?" Zuko said.

"But . . . but . . . Suki! Katara! Naked!" Sokka declared.

The uproar had brought down other people, including Kanna and Iroh. "Nephew!" said the older man. "Do remember me when you are naming any children."

"Don't forget what I said about his fingers!" Kanna told her granddaughter.

Toph's smirking face popped around the doorframe, and she said, "Wow, Sparky. I didn't think you had it in you. Suki, I'm coming along when Sugar Queen tells you the details. There are some things I didn't catch. It's not like the bed was on the floor."

"Toph!" Aang's scandalised voice said, and the airbender joined the rapidly growing number of people hovering around the doorway.

"What Twinkletoes? It's not like you're going to ask Zuko for advice, so I'm doing it for you."

Zuko stared, horrified, at the circus his room had just turned into. Katara couldn't help herself and started giggling. "Welcome to the family," she gasped between bouts of laughter.

"What have I gotten myself into?" asked her deeply embarrassed husband.


End file.
